We showed Arnaud Brisebois’ first short film Trotteur way back in April 2012, so it’s a pleasure to welcome him back in 2017. Anime follows two young people through a post-apocalyptic cityscape as they scavenge for food and shelter. Brisebois’ sense of visual style is stronger than ever.

Duration: 12:00

THE COMMITTEE

Dirs: Gunhild Enger and Jenni Toivoniemi
Norway/Finland/Sweden – 2016

Three delegates from Sweden, Norway and Finland are gathered in Lapland to decide on an art piece, which is to be placed where the three borders meet geographically. But the committee is in for a surprise.

Official Selection – Locarno Film Festival

Duration: 14:00

SECOND TO NONE – AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER

Dir: Vincent Gallagher
Ireland – 2016

Frederick Butterfield is tired of always being runner up. When he becomes the world’s second oldest person, he hatches a plan to claim first place.

Official Selection – Toronto International Film Festival

Duration: 7:00

TEN METER TOWER (HOPPTORNET)

Dirs: Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck
Sweden – 2016

A ten meter diving tower. People who have never been up there before have to choose whether to jump or climb down.

Official Selection – Sundance Film Festival

Duration: 16:00

AUDIBLE STATIC

Dir: Sai Selvarajan
USA – 2016

Thaddeus is a teenager in love. Love comes with panic. Silence. Racing thoughts, but no words. Just, audible static. In the last days of analogue, Thaddeus finds a way to cheat the system.

Duration: 11:00

3-WAY (NOT CALLING)

Dir: Molly McGlynn
Canada – 2016

A couple decide to spice up their sex life with a threesome. Now where can they find the willing third?

Official Selection – Toronto International Film Festival

Duration: 11:00

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PRINCESS X

Dir: Gabriel Abrantes
France/Portugal/UK – 2016

A supercharged history of sculptor Constantin Brancusi’s infamous “Princess X,” a futuristic bronze phallus that is actually a bust portrait of Napoleon’s equally infamous great grand niece, Marie Bonaparte.

Official Selection – Toronto International Film Festival

Official Selection – Locarno Film Festival

Duration: 7:00

It just might be shorts weather again, so we’ll show you ours if you’ll show us yours! The Facebook RSVP is free, advance tickets are (still!) just $10, and door tickets are only $12. And why not bring a friend? 🙂

It’s summertime and there are lots of great things going on in our city, which is why we’ve assembled another killer lineup of short films to tempt you inside. It doesn’t hurt that the Carlton Cinemas are both air-conditioned and fully licensed. Please join us!

Ryan and Cindy have begun to take each other for granted. When tempers flare over a forgotten sandwich, a true showdown emerges where the laundry is left in a heap and the tourtiere is left to rot on the counter.

After the death of his father, Jim vows to fulfill the conditions of his will.

Best in Shorts – Cinefest Sudbury

Duration: 6:30

MEAN TEDDIES – AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER (TIE)

Dir: Tyler Novo
Canada – 2014

Faced with the unfortunate inevitability of his future, a teddy bear must make the decision to stay and fight or to step aside and let a creature take his boy. Director Tyler Novo is a recent graduate of Sheridan College’s famed animation programme.

In order for Ed to continue his comfortable, routine life, he must make the journey into a strange living world. Director Colin Lepper is a recent graduate of Sheridan College’s famed animation programme.

The residents of an isolated village take justice into their own hands.

Official Selection – Austin Film Festival

Official Selection – BFI London Film Festival

Duration: 6:30

HABANA

Dir: Edouard Salier
France – 2014

Havana is occupied by foreign forces and on the edge of civil war. Lazaro, a kid from the slums, walks us through his streets and reveals the chaos that has taken over the capital.

Canadian Premiere

Official Selection – Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival

Duration: 22:00

PERFECT DRUG

Dir: Toon Aerts
Belgium – 2012

Misha, Yumiko and Chinatsu are sitting in a parked car in front of a strange motel. In the backseat they have a huge number of test tubes filled with different substances. It’s clear that their attempted burglary didn’t go as planned… While Yumiko tries to calm down their Albanian boss Hassan on the phone, Misha can’t resist it any longer. He opens up a test tube and drinks it to the last drop, causing some extraordinary effects.

Official Selection – Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival

Duration: 13:30

Join us as we continue our third season! The Facebook RSVP is free, advance tickets are $10, door tickets are $12, and subscriptions are just $35 for the rest of the year (and they include admission to our July 27th “Secret Screening,” too.

We’re pretty excited to present the lineup for our next screening, our tenth quarterly presentation of the best in Canadian and international short film. For the first time, we’ll have a Q&A between a director and the actor in his films (who also happens to be a Shorts That Are Not Pants subscriber!). We also present a film whose title might be longer than the film itself. And some bugs. And George Takei’s voice. All of that and a whole lot more awaits you in just a few weeks. Please join us!

Albert the Squirrel makes a startling discovery… an empty space where once his favourite scarf lay. He heads off into the forest only to find everyone else is preoccupied with worries of their own. He helps who he can before moving on but never seems to get any closer to his goal. Ultimately, Albert’s problem is put in perspective by the friends he helped and the problems they faced and overcame together. Narrated by George Takei.

In a lifeless urban landscape where time itself has stopped its crawl, a mad ballet is commencing and a newly hatched butterfly is about to die.

This tragic story was constructed using dead insects gathered from forgotten attics and tool sheds, between window panels and cobwebs. It combines a number of animation techniques from classic stop-motion animation to animated 3D models of x-ray CT-scanned insects.

Best Experimental Short – CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival

Official Selection – Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival

Official Selection – Venice Film Festival

Duration: 7:00

NOTES ON BLINDNESS

Dirs: James Spinney and Peter Middleton
UK – 2014

In the summer of 1983, just days before the birth of his first son, writer and theologian John Hull went blind.

In order to make sense of the upheaval in his life, he began keeping a diary on audiocassette. Upon its publication in 1990, Oliver Sacks described the work as ‘the most extraordinary, precise, deep and beautiful account of blindness I have ever read. It is to my mind a masterpiece.’

With exclusive access to these original recordings, NOTES ON BLINDNESS encompasses dreams, memory and imaginative life, excavating the interior world of blindness.

Official Selection – Sundance Film Festival

Official Selection – Sarasota Film Festival

Duration: 13:00

NASHORN IM GALOPP (RHINO FULL THROTTLE) – AUDIENCE AWARD WINNER

Dir: Erik Schmitt
Germany – 2013

Bruno roams the streets of Berlin with his head full of questions, looking for what’s behind the many facades and surfaces. He is seeking the soul of the city, that little something that others might never notice. He unexpectedly meets an ally.

Official Selection – Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival

Official Selection – Berlin Film Festival

Official Selection – Palm Springs Shortsfest

Duration: 15:00

SUPERVENUS

Dir: Frédéric Doazan
France – 2013

In real time, a plastic surgeon is creating the new goddess of beauty.

Official Selection – Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival

Duration: 2:30

DOS CARAS (TWO FACE)

Dir: Francisco Bendomir
Argentina – 2013

When Sergio accidentally discovers an old Russian jewel hidden in his girlfriend’s grandmother’s house, he begins planning a heist.

LA INVIOLABILIDAD DEL DOMICILIO SE BASA EN EL HOMBRE QUE APARECE EMPUÑANDO UN HACHA EN LA PUERTA DE SU CASA (THE INVIOLABILITY OF THE DOMICILE IS BASED ON THE MAN WHO APPEARS WIELDING AN AXE AT THE DOOR OF HIS HOUSE)

Dir: Alex Piperno
Uruguay/Argentina – 2011

In the garden of a villa in the countryside, a series of transactions are carried out involving a man, a woman and a group of subjects with certain convictions.

Official Selection – Semaine de la critique (Cannes)

Duration: 6:30

BLACKOUT

Dir: Sharron Mirsky
Canada – 2013

Blackout is a short, animated documentary film in which several storytellers share their experience of the 2003 “Northeast Blackout” which affected much of Ontario, and 7 US states. The unexpected effects on the community highlight the best of humanity under adverse conditions. A variety of direct-animation techniques were used to capture the warmth and spontaneity of the events described.

Official Selection – TIFF Student Film Showcase

Official Selection – DOK Leipzig

Official Selection – Athens Animation Festival

Duration: 4:00

ONE MORE THING

Dir: Demetre Eliopoulos
Canada – 2013

“I concur, Hamlet, but what will befall us when we run out of DVDs?”
-Horatio

Director Demetre Eliopoulos will be in attendance for a post-screening Q&A conducted by the actor featured in both films, Matt Brown.